


A Moment of Peace

by captainkilly



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Season/Series 02 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-29 23:14:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6398074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainkilly/pseuds/captainkilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He finds her sitting on the road in front of the car he crashed into. It's the last thing he expected to see now that he's out of the woods.</p>
<p>(Divergence from episode 2.12.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Moment of Peace

**Author's Note:**

> All this was born from a simple pondering: what if, by some miracle, Karen had stayed in the area following the events with the Colonel in the woods?

He finds her sitting on the road in front of the car he crashed into. It's the last thing he expected to see now that he's out of the woods. She had yelled at him in there. Her voice had been like shards of ice slicing through whatever was left of his soul. He'd turned his back on her. He'd told her to stay away from him, before, when the light and dark in his life collided in a diner that had never seen the good side of town to begin with. She'd probably heard the gunshot now, too. 

He sighs. Scrapes his throat.

He is pleased when she looks up and immediately scurries back about an inch or two. At least, he thinks he's pleased for one second until his stomach drops at the sight of her tear-stained cheeks. Her nose is runny from crying the way you only get when you've been sobbing your heart out for a while. He knows her voice will crack when she tries to speak, though right now she just sits there looking up at him like she's not even really seeing him at all. 

He doesn't want to admit she scares the hell out of him.

"Ma'am?" He pushes the title he bestowed upon her forth lightly. Lets it dance around her in the night air and the quiet. "The hell you still doing here?"

She snaps out of it then, as he knew she would. The stupor she lulled herself into is gone. "Don't you fucking _ma'am_ me like there's nothing going on and you didn't just wreck my car so you could kill someone again, Frank!" she all but yells at him. Her voice cracks in the middle. Cracks on his name, too, and she spits the remainder out like it's poison on her tongue. She's still seated on the concrete, glaring up at him through red-rimmed eyes. "That car was a gift from Ben, left to me when he died. He was my friend. Feels like he's dead all over again now." The words come out of her like they're acid pouring onto his skin. He doesn't know why he feels so small when he is physically towering over her, but he almost instinctively hunches in on himself. "I don't know why I didn't leave. I don't know why I came here at all. I don't know what the hell I did to deserve having a gun pulled on me again and being threatened again!"

"Again?" It's _that_ part of her angry tumble that he chooses to latch onto. He stands there, brow furrowed, recounting all the times he has seen her, and comes up with nothing but the sloppy shootings that tore up her apartment and the DA's office. But that's probably not what she means, probably not at all what she's even thinking about now that her breath is coming out in short gasps, and he finds himself floundering to wrap his head around the fact that this has happened to her before. "What do you mean, again?"

She shakes her head against all the other questions that are threatening to spill from his lips. She starts to cry again, then, and he briefly shuts his eyes in silent prayer. Her hiccupping sobs fill his ears like gunfire pounding into his skull. He's not sure what any priest would say about the fact that he can only feel guilt when he listens to her. It feels like he is falling down into darkness, pushed over the edge by the small hand of God's brightest angel. She's declared him dead. Buried him alone in the act of murder. But she's yelling at more ghosts than just him, and she's sobbing over more loss than just his.

He decides in that moment.

He walks toward her until he can no longer walk. He kneels down before her in supplication. She is falling apart right in front of him. He hears her spiral into even shorter breaths. She bows her head to her knees like she's gone through this exact state of panic before. She knows how to act on the time when the silence becomes bigger than the tears. He makes a hushing sound before he has time to think about what to do next. Keeps making the sound like he has any clue about what he's doing. (He really doesn't, but he tries.) 

"I got you," he says, and in that moment it is the only truth he has. "Sshh. I got you. Listen to me." He almost begs her this, because he knows she won't have any reason to. Pleads with her to hear him even when she has closed the door on him. "You're safe. I know it sounds stupid, but you are." He pushes it forth gently, with all the self-deprecation he can manage at how lame his words sound. Her breath evens out slightly, but she only starts crying harder. "Sshh. Sshh. I got you."

"I kn-know." She wipes at her cheeks furiously and meets his gaze. Brushes her hair back impatiently. It makes her look even more disheveled, but it also makes her look undeniably more like herself. "I know why you did that." Her eyes stray to the woods for a moment. Then focus back on him again. Her blue eyes don't even swirl with accusations. "Did it.. did it help? I-I know it's a stupid thing to ask. And I'm thinking it all through, every last bit of what led you here, and I can't blame you for what you did in there. I _can't_." He knows she would have liked to. Would have made it easier. But her voice turns soft now. He has to strain to catch the next words. "I just don't think it's over."

He hums in agreement for a second. He doesn't think it's over, either. Not when there's a secret room full of weapons back there. Not now that everything leads back to Kandahar. He thinks there are probably a million questions she wants to ask. For one wild moment, he thinks she's going to do just that when she gets to her knees and stares him straight in the eye. But then her head drops onto his shoulder. Some strands of hair tickle his nose and his chin. He lets out a breath he doesn't even know he's been holding.

"It helps in the moment," he tells her then. "It's one moment of peace in a swirl of war. It doesn't last." She's nodding against him, then, as if she knows exactly what he means. Perhaps she does. His hand comes to rest on the nape of her neck. "I've lost the power for a peaceful resolution, because the only time I know peace is when--"

He decides to remain honest with her at the last second. Doesn't finish his sentence that could have either ended with _when I have killed_ or with _when I am in one space with you_. He's not sure which one would have tumbled out now that her hand is on his shoulder and she's leaning against him like he's the last thing keeping her upright. Wants to spare her the responsibility of being the one he leans on, even though he really does and he's not sure how that happened.

Maybe he is being kept upright by her.

"What are we going to do?" Her voice is muffled slightly by his clothes. "Are you going to stay here? How does this.." she gestures wildly for a moment while still leaning against him with her forehead, and he can't help the chuckle that escapes him at the sight. "How does this work?" Her head snapped up at his chuckle. His hand falls away. She stares at him incredulously for a second. "Don't laugh!" she tells him with all the indignance she can muster. "What am I going to do?"

_That_ question, he can handle. "You're going to get up," he tells her. "You're going to get back in your own car. It should still work enough for you to get back into the city in one piece. You're going to drive home." He grasps both her shoulders lightly when she begins to shake her head. "You can do this, okay? I have some things left to do around here. You don't need to be here for those. And it's important to get back behind the wheel as fast as possible after a crash."

"I know that. They said that to me back when.. back when my brother died in one."

He barely hears her admission that she'd been scared to drive for weeks after it happened. Barely registers the way her voice trembles and cracks on the words, as though it's the first time she's told anyone about that and it cannot be that he is the first to hear about it. He looks at her silver car rather than at her for the longest time after her words die down. Sees the way the passenger's side is all but trashed. Sees how completely shitty the car looks, though he told her it's still drivable and it probably is. Curses himself in every language he's ever picked up a swearword from -- and he knows a lot of those, because some things just happen when you're a Marine on overseas duty. _God, Castle, you're a fucking idiot. Real good going, Frankie-boy. Crash her fucking car after her brother died in a car crash, why don't you?_

"I'm sorry," he tells her. Actually, it comes out as a half-shout of please-forgive-me-I-had-no-idea and please-kill-me-right-now. And it's somehow about more than just her brother's ghost. More than just about the car that belonged to a now-dead friend of hers. Maybe it's about all their ghosts gathering in the space between them. Maybe it's about everything they're keeping alive between the dimly lit road and the dark woods. He doesn't even dare look at her, because he'll just find compassion staring back. He fortifies the apology. "I really am."

"Me too," she replies. Her voice is stronger than it was. He snaps his gaze back to her, only to find that she has risen to her feet. He's still on his knees in front of her and something about that feels so right that he almost laughs again. "I just have one problem, you know, with you still being alive and all." Her gaze softens when she smiles at him and he knows she's making light of the situation. "I promised my new boss at the Bulletin that I would write a posthumous portrait of you. That's why I came here tonight. Some portrait that's gonna be now, huh?"

He blinks momentarily when he soaks up the information that somehow she transitioned from the almost ill-fitting Nelson & Murdock to something that is by all rights her second skin in the space of time that he's known her. "I'm sorry to inconvenience you," he rumbles as he rises to his feet. "Maybe it shouldn't be about me at all, though, did you consider that?" At her frown, he shakes his head. "Guys like me, we have short lifespans. We don't live to see better tomorrows, because we give our lives to make those happen. People like you.. people wanting the truth.. there's something inside of you that lives longer than a symbol like the Devil of Hell's Kitchen or like a fucked-up man like me."

"So, what you're saying is.. people need hope that they can somehow help make that better tomorrow happen?"

She frowns up at him as he walks her to her car. He is quiet for a moment. Lets her enter the car first. "No, ma'am," he tells her when she is seated safely inside it. "People like you need to realise that you are the ones who inspire us to fight. You're our heroes." He pauses then. Almost winces. "Don't quote me on that. Can't have the general public think I'm going soft behind my reputation."

She laughs, then, a twinkling laugh that seems to light up all the spaces inside the wreck that is his soul. She leans over to him and drops her voice into a conspiratory whisper. "Don't worry," she hushes softly, "your secret's safe with me." He finally laughs in reply when she drops him an exaggerated wink at the end of that. Her eyes spark with momentary delight. She reaches out and closes the car door. Separates herself from him. Starts the car and begins her drive away from him. Rolls down the window a moment later. "Don't be a stranger, Frank."

He doesn't quite know what to say to that.

She doesn't give him the chance to.

Karen Page speeds away from his disaster.

He turns back toward the woods.


End file.
